A Genius in the Family

A Genius in the Family : Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim Through a Small Son’s Eyes
by Hiram Percy Maxim

Part I (pages 1-32)

I SUSPECT I had one of the most unusual fathers any­ body ever had. I was his firstborn. He knew con­siderably less than nothing about children and he had to learn how to be a father. He learned on me.

He did not learn easily. In fact, as I look back upon it, he never thoroughly learned how to be a father. As for me, although I had no previous experience, I do not remember having very much difficulty in learn­ing to be a son. I accepted my father as a general run-of-the-mine father; he wore trousers, had a deep voice and a beard, and otherwise looked like other fathers. When we first met he did not impress me par­ticularly. Indeed, either he was so colorless or I was so unobserving that it was well over two years after we first met that I noticed he was a member of the family.

As the reader will discover, he was anything but colorless. I must have been unobserving, because I utterly failed to note the adding of such an important item to our family as my sister Florence. I distinctly remember when there were but three of us, my father, my mother, and myself; but to save my life I cannot remember the occasion of my sister’s joining the family, although I was nearly four at the time. As for my sec­ond sister, who arrived two and a half years later, I remember her coming very clearly, as I had the im­pression the house had caught on fire.

My father saw to it very early in my life that there should be an erroneous impression in my mind concern­ing the words “papa” and “man.” I was allowed to acquire the impression that the words were synonyms. On a certain occasion this led to a misunderstanding between me and the driver of a coal-truck. I happened to be out on the sidewalk in front of our house in Brooklyn, New York, when this driver delivered our coal. Shoveling the coal down the coal-hole was an in­teresting operation to me. I became impressed also with the evident importance of our family, because of the large amount of coal which we seemed to need. I spoke to the driver of the coal-truck on the subject, address­ing him as “papa.” It surprised him very much. He denied that he was a papa, was very positive that he was not my papa, and went so far as to state that he was not married. What being married had to do with it was not plain to me, and I maintained that because he wore trousers and had a mustache he must be a papa. I am told that I added that most papas of my acquaint­ance did not have such dirty faces as his.

When the coal had all been put in this person took the matter up with my mother, stating that I had called him “papa.” My mother explained to me after this little colloquy that I had only one papa, that he was not the driver of a coal-truck, but, instead, was the papa who lived with us.

Younger readers would do well to realize that in the days of which I write there were no telephones, no elec­tric lights, no electric street cars, no bicycles, no automobiles, no skyscrapers, no radios, and no airplanes. To go anywhere one either walked or was hauled by a horse or a steam-locomotive. We were living on Third Street near Smith Street in Brooklyn at this time. Even in the large cities—and Brooklyn was one—the streets had a very small amount of traffic in them, except in downtown districts. No one ever thought of stop lights and traffic policemen. The average street car or wagon moved at about five miles per hour. No one ever thought of being run over and killed. The streets were clear and open. Indeed, there were very few overhead wires on poles, except in downtown New York. The streets were lighted with gas-lamps and men came around every eve­ning on every street in the city and lighted them, and came again in the early morning and put them out.

The streets in many places were paved with rounded cobblestones. Probably there was not a rubber-tired vehicle in all the world. Had there been bicycles, they could not have been ridden in most city streets.

Our house on Third Street was a few doors from Smith Street. There was a horse-car line on Smith Street. In one direction it ran to Fulton Ferry, which, in my estimation, was a very long way off. My father went to his business in New York on the Fulton Ferry. In the other direction the Smith Street horse cars ran to Ninth Street, where they turned and crossed the Gow­anus Canal, the water in which was indescribably dirty. I used to marvel that water could be so dirty.

Some distance beyond the canal the car line ran past the place where the snow plows were kept. I used to watch carefully for this place when I was taken to Pros­pect Park, because the gate in the fence would be open sometimes and I could see the snow plows. This vision used to thrill me to the marrow every time; snow plows were the most interesting things in my world. In the winter, when they would pass along Smith Street with a long string of horses pulling them, sweeping the snow off the tracks and blowing it all over everybody on the sidewalk, the spectacle rendered me speechless. The driver of the snow plow reminded me of Santa Claus. He had a very red face and he was always frosted all over with snow. He had a very loud voice and he used to shout at the horses and crack a long whip. Nothing fascinated me quite so much as the passage of the snow plow and I used to beg my father to talk about it.

My father had wandered down from the wilds of Maine, where he was born, and at the time of which I write, 1873, he was senior partner of the firm of Maxim & Welch, builders of steam-engines and gas­ generating machines on Center Street, New York.

Our house on Third Street, Brooklyn, had a high stoop which led to the second floor, where were the parlor, living-room, and two of our bed-chambers. The dining-room, pantry, and kitchen were on the first floor, which was two or three steps below the ground level. They were entered by means of a basement door which was under the brownstone stoop. There was a front yard, which must have been very minute, and in which my mother attempted to coax a bit of sickly grass to grow. I was the cause of the grass being sickly. I was forever in difficulties because I was forbidden to walk upon this grass, and it seemed to me to be the one place where it was imperative that I should walk frequently.

Between the yard and the sidewalk of the street was a very ornate cast-iron fence. It had a gate in it which had to be swung open and closed with deliberation. Being made of cast iron, it was heavy, and swinging it open and closing it took time. This gate stands out conspicuously in my memory because being invariably in a hurry, as was also the case with my father, I could not resist the temptation, now and again, to postpone closing it. This always got me into trouble with my mother, who, I am sure, what between me and my father, must have lived a troubled life.

My father had a simple solution for the gate nui­sance. It was to vault over it. Both going and coming he always vaulted it, unless he was burdened with packages. I used to envy him this ability, and I used to direct the attention of my little friends to the fact that my father was the only father on the street who jumped his gate. Business men in those days always wore high silk hats and Prince Albert coats. I believe we call them frock­ coats today. It would be quite a spectacle in these times to see a gentleman in a silk hat and a frock coat vault­ing his areaway fence.

§2

On the corner of our street was a drug store in the windows of which were large glass vessels containing highly colored liquids. All drug stores had these vessels of highly colored liquids in my day. Only very old-fashioned drug stores have them today. I was sent fre­quently to this drug store on simple errands.

The man in the drug store owned a little white dog. He was a very gentle little dog and he seemed to like me. We had no dog at our house. All we had was a very small baby which cried too much. One day I told the man in the drug store that I loved his little dog. I think I suggested to him that it would be very nice of him if he gave me the dog. Indeed, I suspect that I sug­gested it several times. The drug-store man became impatient finally and one day told me to go out and find a penny with a head on each side and bring it to him and he would give me the dog. This seemed a simple thing to do, so I hurried home to get one.

I found my mother and asked her to let me see all of her money. This seemed to astonish the dear lady. She asked me why I told her that the man in the drug store promised to give me his little white dog if I would bring in a penny which had a head on each side. My mother smiled and explained to me that the man was joking, that every penny had a head on one side only, and that he made the offer only because he knew there was no such thing as a penny with a head on both sides. My mother was wasting her breath. There was the dog, and I wanted him, and aII I had to do to own him was to find a penny with a head on both sides. My mother could not sense the importance of the matter. I insisted that we look over her pennies for one with a head on both sides.

I remember how we argued as we went upstairs to her bureau drawer, where she kept her purse, and how she emptied all of her coins out of the purse into her lap; and how I, standing at her knee, examined both sides of every penny; and how disappointed I was when I found that every one of them had a head on one side only. I was thwarted, but by no means defeated. I made up my mind that my problem was above a woman’s head and that I would be obliged to seek my father’s assistance. He was a man and I was very sure that he could find me a penny with a head on both sides, for he could do wonderful things.

The rest of the afternoon was spent waiting at the corner for him to arrive. He always came by horse car and I knew exactly where he would get off. After a very long wait he arrived. Running up to him, I asked him to look in his pockets and see if he had a penny with a head on both sides. Naturally he was aston­ished, but instead of showing his surprise and treating me as though I were a little child, he pretended to take the matter seriously. Stopping on the sidewalk and handing me his evening paper and a package to hold, he fished out of his pocket all the coins he had, and selecting the pennies, we went carefully over each one, looking to see if any of them had a head on both sides. They all had a head on one side only. He professed surprise at this and he went over them again in order to be sure. This encouraged me, for obviously he had expected to find one. Evidently they were to be had, which was precisely the impression he wished to convey to me.

As he gathered up his paper and package he asked me casually what I wanted the penny for. I told him that the man in the drug store had said that I could have his little white dog if I would bring in a penny with a head on both sides. “Well,” said my father, “that ought to be easy. When I go over to New York tomorrow I will see if I can find one. They must have plenty of them over there.”

I was very much elated. I knew my father would have no trouble with a little matter like this. He could do anything, and if he said he would bring me a penny with a head on both sides he would do it, which meant that the little white dog would be mine. When he left for New York the next morning I was careful to re­mind him about the penny. He assured me he would not forget.

It was a very long day. I thought late afternoon would never come. I had made up my mind just where I was going to have the little dog sleep, where he was going to have his meals, and what we were going to do together. In the meanwhile a very busy man in New York, with heavy responsibilities resting upon his shoul­ders, went into his factory tool-room, put a penny in a lathe and faced off the “tail” side of it until it was just half the thickness of a normal penny. Then he repeated the operation with another penny, which gave him two half pennies. He then soldered these two thin half pennies together, thereby producing a coin of normal thickness but with a head on both sides. When the edge had been burnished the joint could not be seen, whereupon he probably smiled and placed the unique coin in his pocket.

That afternoon I was at the corner, waiting for him. When he arrived I ran out to greet him and asked him if he had found the penny. Acting as though he had forgotten the matter, but that on a chance shot he might have one among his other coins, he reached into his pocket and drew them out. There were several pen­nies, and looking at each one, he picked out one which had a head on both sides. Handing it to me, he asked if that was what I was looking for. I was none too familiar with the heads and tails matter and I had to compare the double-headed one with the others in order to make up my mind. With his assistance it became clear that this penny had a real head on each side. I was for going and getting the dog forthwith, but my father suggested that we go home first, and then after supper he would go up to the drug store with me.

I can see my mother now, as we three sat at the table, she astounded at the double-headed penny, ut­terly unable to account for it, but knowing it was a trick, while my father laughed at her, for there the penny was, and it certainly had two heads on it. Know­ing my father as she did, and as I came to know him in due time, she must have said what I heard her say many hundreds of times in later years, “Now, Hiram, please don’t do anything foolish and in bad taste.” This all went over my head. I recall my inability to under­stand her attitude. There was the penny, staring every­ body in the face with its two heads. Why all the talk? The double-headed penny assured getting the dog. What possible objection could my mother have to the proceeding?

After supper my father and I sauntered up to the drug store. As we entered, I dancing with joyous an­ticipation, my father hung back. Running up to the man, I held out to him my double-headed penny and told him I had come for the dog. The man took the penny, turned it over and over and over again, stared at me, glanced at my father in a sheepish sort of way, and gave every evidence of being taken thoroughly aback. I suppose that this little scene was what my father had been looking forward to all day. The drug­ store man asked me where I had obtained the penny. I told him that my father had given it to me. This in­volved the latter, who then stepped forward, asking what the difficulty seemed to be, and acting as though he had no previous knowledge of the matter. The drug­ store man held out the penny in a helpless sort of way, saying something about a joke. My father, acting as though he could not understand, took the penny, glanced at it casually, and handed it back, saying some­thing about not remembering having seen one like it before.

I asked if I was going to get the dog. To my com­plete dismay, the drug-store man indicated that I was not. I remember the maze of confusing talk, which did not interest me, for it was the dog that I wanted. My father did not put as much value on the dog as did I. He appeared to be involved in the legal aspects of the case. After a lot of talking, during which I thought him particularly stupid, because he knew perfectly the original terms of the bargain between me and the drug-store man, he appeared to discover for the first time that the proposition had been that if I brought in a penny with a head on both sides I would get the dog. Having established this fact, my father summed up the difficulty. It appeared to him I had been offered a certain dog in consideration of my bringing in a penny with a head on both sides. It appeared to him I had done this. It appeared to him it was up to the drug­-store man to fulfill his part of the bargain. In other words, if the bargain between me and the drug-store man was what both sides agreed it was, then there was but one solution, and that was for the drug-store man to hand over the little white dog. Of course the drug­ store man had not the slightest intention of giving up the dog. When this had become established my father made it plain that it would be more prudent if the drug-store man would be careful about making offers in the future, unless he proposed to live up to them. Where that poor drug-store proprietor thought we had got the double-headed penny was never disclosed.

We took our double-headed penny home. I was very much disappointed. I had believed the drug-store man, and I fairly pined for that little dog. It was my first contact with a broken pledge. I had not known before that there was such a thing in the world as a broken pledge. My father did not take my view of the matter. He had had his little joke; the drug-store man had been given the surprise of his life and had been placed in an embarrassing position. That was all there was to it. The incident was closed.

§3

With my father, one never knew what was going to happen from one moment to the next. On one occasion he and I were walking through an uptown street in New York after dark. In those days Fifty-eighth Street was far uptown. We probably were walking through Fifty-eighth Street from one avenue to another. There were any number of house lots which had not yet been built upon. These lots had board fences to prevent passers-by from falling into the rock pit which most of the vacant places seemed to be. In front of one of these board fences, and in the very dim light of the infrequent gas lamps, a tough-looking specimen demanded money. It really amounted to a hold-up, although no pistol was involved.

My father was an extraordinarily powerful man and as quick as a cat. Before the man had finished speaking my father grabbed him and actually boosted him up on top of the fence and pushed him over. What he fell into on the other side, how much he was hurt, how he got out, and what he thought had happened to him have filled me with wonder these many years. My father was the last man on earth to start monkeying with.

One of our many cooks at Third Street was an Irish girl. One day a man came to the door and told her that he was taking orders for photograph enlargements. If she would let him have one of her photographs he would enlarge it, put it in a beautiful frame, and bring it back in a few days. The price was only two dollars, which was less than the cost of the frame as he represented matters. He exhibited a beautiful frame in which was an excellent enlargement of a cabinet-size photograph of a young woman. Our cook yielded, gave him one of her photographs and two dollars. As might be expected, the man never sent any enlargement. After several weeks had passed my mother told my father of the fraud. To everybody’s complete surprise he became very indignant, scolded the girl, and evinced a deep resentment against the man who would thus prey upon servant girls. He cross-examined her and gathered all the information she could give him, and for several Sundays after that he and I pursued the trail of the photograph man.

After he had run down a great many addresses in Brooklyn and found that the man had moved on, the trail led to the stockyards in Jersey City. After securing another address at these stockyards my father noticed that the cattle in the pens crowded toward him whenever he moved about. This seemed a curious thing, and he went from pen to pen, experimenting, the cattle crowding toward him in every case. Something led him to suspect that the animals were thirsty. To prove it he opened a valve in a pipe leading to a trough in one of the pens. As soon as the water began to flow a terrible stampede developed among the cattle in that and in neighboring pens. They became crazed at the sound of the water and fought desperately for a place at the trough. It terrified me because they seemed very large beasts and very angry, and I feared they might break down the fence in their fighting and get out.

My father then went to other pens and opened the water-valves, and the thirsty animals behaved the same way there, too. His indignation over this new situation diverted him from the pursuit of the photograph man. He was busy opening valves when a watchman came hurrying up. I knew there was going to be a scene and I dreaded what I knew was to come. Sure enough, my father pitched into the watchman, demanding to know when the cattle had last been watered. The poor watch­ man realized he was dealing with a man who meant business and explained that it was orders from the office that the cattle should not be watered after Thursday morning, so that when they came to be sold by weight on Monday they would drink enormous quantities of water and weigh more. This was too much, and my father delivered himself of a few well-chosen and very pointed remarks about such inhuman practices, warning the watchman that he would report the matter to the proper authorities the first thing Monday morning. It was impossible for him to water all the cattle in the stockyards, so after more very acid remarks about the persons who operated the stockyards we departed and resumed our search for the photograph man.

We finally located the swindler. He turned out to be a barber in the most wretched barber shop I have ever seen. My father recovered the two dollars obtained from our cook, and had the man arrested and fined. As for the cattle, my father did just what he said he would do, and I am under the impression that he went to great lengths in the matter, giving a lot of his time to it, and being instrumental in having some kind of law passed in New Jersey prohibiting this form of cruelty.

§4

While I am on the subject of cooks I am reminded of an especially hectic Sunday morning with one of them. My father used to pretend to be overcome by the stupidity of the average cook or housemaid. We came to have a series of stupids. I remember Stupid the Fifth very distinctly. I thought this was her real name. Everybody, my mother excepted, called her by that name.

It was one of the several stupids who was the unwitting subject of one of his so-called ”experiments” one Sunday morning in the kitchen. The kitchen is no place for the head of the family. I learned that very early in life. In my family I naturally keep out of the kitchen if it is possible to do so. Not so my father. He loved the kitchen, and I came to learn never to leave his side when he was in it. There was likely to be action at any minute.

He had been reading that the sensation of extreme cold is the same as that of extreme heat. It occurred to him one Sunday morning to demonstrate it. He secured two stove pokers, hooked affairs which were used in those days to poke the ashes out of a coal fire in the open grates we had. One of these pokers he placed in a bath of snow mixed with alcohol. The alcohol melts the snow and produces a liquid which may have a termperature considerably below zero. The other poker he placed in the open grate in the kitchen range. When it was red hot he walked around the kitchen with it, and used it to burn a bit of wood and create an odor of something burning. While all this stage play was going on the Irishwoman was busy preparing the Sunday dinner. Unconsciously she became aware of the presence of a red-hot poker. As I look back at it, I marvel at the per­fection of the man’s psychology.

When he had paraded the red-hot poker around the kitchen for some time, and had told me (in a voice which he intended the cook to overhear), how red-hot irons were used to brand cattle on their necks, and how it must hurt, he went outside and got the cold poker, which he wiped off and secreted under his coat. Returning to the kitchen, he withdrew from the open grate of the kitchen range the other poker, which was at a bril­liant red heat. Grasping this red-hot poker, and dancing about as though it were so hot that even the handle burned him, he stepped up to the cook from behind, waved the red-hot poker where she could see it and feel its heat, pulled it back, drew the cold poker from under his coat and clapped the latter against the cook’s neck, shouting, “LOOK OUT!” and emitting a loud hissing sound.

Naturally, the poor woman thought he had branded her on the neck with a red-hot poker. I saw the entire proceeding and knew that he did nothing of the kind. The cook gave a piercing scream, clapped the corner of her apron to her neck, and fell fainting into a chair. My mother, convinced that some dreadful accident had occurred, came running from upstairs, to find my father in fits of laughter and the cook emitting periodic sreams as she came out of her faint.

My poor mother was distraught. The screams shat­tered her nerves as they did mine. She tried desperately to get the cook’s hand down from her neck in order to ascertain the extent of her injury, but the cook evidently thought she would bleed to death if she removed her hand and the apron. This nerve-racking scene went on for some time, the cook letting go a piercing scream every so often. After a great amount of effort my mother succeeded in getting the woman’s hand down from her neck, and the surprising fact was disclosed that there was not even a mark visible, which threw my mother into complete confusion. She was very excitable and for some time she and my father and the cook shouted at cross purposes at one another, nobody lis­tening to anybody else and nobody being able to make head or tail of what the others were talking about. My father saw that he must have gone too far, and did his best to explain that it was an experiment he had been conducting, that nobody had been hurt, and that it was all very funny if only the others would see it in that light; and besides, things had come to a pretty pass if a man could not experiment in his own house.

The cook could not be persuaded to see the matter in that light, insisting that she had been branded on the neck with a red-hot poker, although a look in the mirror failed to disclose even a slight mark. She threw up her job then and there, declaring that she would not remain with a family where the man of the house branded the servants on their necks. My mother had a flood of tears, the cook packed up her belongings and departed in high dudgeon, and the Sunday dinner was late and a very doleful affair.

§5

On another Sunday morning my father called to me and asked if I had noticed that every Sunday morning the policeman on the beat spent an hour or so in the areaway of the house across the street. I had noticed it and I had also noticed that the housemaid of the people opposite was involved in these Sunday-morning visits. My father asked me what I imagined could be the trouble over there that they had to call the police every Sunday morning. I was old enough at the time to sense that the policeman was not there to straighten out any trouble or to protect anybody; he was there because the housemaid was there. I had on two or three occasions heard my father use the word ”sparking,” although he had not realized that I had noticed it; so I suggested that perhaps the policeman was sparking the housemaid. My father was amazed at my knowledge, for I was only five, and he repeated the word after me. “Sparking?” Then, unable to resist the temptation, he continued, “What do they do when they spark?” I could see the little lines around his eyes and I knew that I had interested him.

My father pretended to be concerned about the sparking business. We watched the policeman and the maid, and finally he said: ”I tell you what we ought to do, Percy. We ought to make them stop that sparking every Sunday morning. If they spark on Sundays, how do we know that they will not spark on other days; and we cannot have this policeman spending his time sparking when he should be watching for bad people.”

There seemed a certain virtue in this point of view, and with the directness of the child I asked how we could stop them. Said he: “Of course we can’t go over there and tell them to stop sparking; but I tell you what we could do. We could get a bean-blower and blow beans at them.”

I inquired what he meant.

“Well, I’ll tell you,” said he. “Between now and next Sunday I shall bring over from New York a long brass tube that will be nice and straight. It will be just big enough on the inside to accept a bean. Then we can get some beans from Mamma and we can blow them over there and make him stop sparking the housemaid.”

This seemed most irregular to me; but no matter if it was irregular or not, if he was going to do it, it would be interesting. So I gave my whole-hearted support to the plan. I recall how funny he looked, even to me, when he cautioned me not to tell Mamma about it because she would not understand. He was absolutely right. I knew that Mamma would not understand.

When the next Sunday came around I had forgotten about the sparking business. But my father had not. When my mother had disappeared upstairs for the morning he laid aside a drawing he was working on and, calling me, pointed across the street, remarking something to the effect that they were at it again. That re­minded me and I hastened to ask him if he had remembered to bring the brass tube for the beans. He said he had the tube in the closet where we kept our umbrellas. There followed a pause, so I asked him why he did not get it out and blow some beans. He seemed to have been waiting for me to suggest this, which struck me as being very odd. I probably suggested that while he was getting the brass tube I would ask Mamma for some beans. He vetoed this idea instantly. He would get the beans. Mamma ought not be disturbed. And it needed a certain kind of bean which only he knew how to select. I saw the wisdom of this procedure, for I could see that to ask my mother for beans would raise the question of what the beans were wanted for; and something told me that she would not give her whole-hearted support to using them to blow at a policeman.

After much shifting of things and adjusting of the window curtain we were ready to blow our first bean. I was very much excited, for I had not the slightest notion in the world what the bean was supposed to do after it had been blown. To my surprise, my father pointed the bean-blowing tube at the top of the building across the street. Putting his mouth to the tube, he sent a little white bean across the street where it struck the building about three stories up, directly over the areaway where the policeman and the housemaid were sparking. The bean bounced off the wall of the building and fell vertically into the entrance into the areaway. Nothing happened, so my father blew another. It also fell into the areaway. It seemed to me to be a most curious way to go about “smoking out” a policeman. But I was wrong.

After half a dozen beans had been blown against the wall and had fallen into the areaway, the policeman came out and looked very hard at the windows over his head. Then it was that I saw and appreciated my father’s strategy. By blowing the beans against the wall and high up, my father made them appear to the policeman to be coming from overhead. Probably the very last place he would have expected to find the beans coming from was across the street. He peered at all the win­dows, waiting for the unknown one upstairs to throw another bean, so he could catch him at it. But nothing came, my father being too clever to blow while the policeman was looking up. Presently he went down into the area again, which was the signal for a perfect fusilade of beans. Out the policeman popped again, this time walking out on to the sidewalk in order to gain a better view of the windows above. I suppose if some innocent person had selected this moment to raise a window and look out, nothing on earth would have convinced the policeman this person was not guilty of blowing the beans.

But nobody raised a window, so the mystified police­man had nothing else to do but to return to the areaway and the housemaid. He had no more than entered when the beans rained down again. This time he dashed out, thinking to be so quick that he would catch the blower. But there was somebody quicker than he was. He had not a chance in the world. He walked around this time in a most determined manner, my father in the meantime rolling around in gales of merriment. I remember that I thought it was a good joke, but that—like all my father’s jokes—it was not entirely above criticism. It seemed to me to be playing with fire, this making a policeman the butt of a joke.

The policeman finally had to give up and return to the areaway and the housemaid. The instant his figure disappeared into the areaway another downfall of beans took place. He did not pop out so quickly this time. When he did come out he waved good-by to somebody in the areaway, doubtless the housemaid, and came di­rectly over to our side of the street. I thought he had detected us and I became alarmed. I suspect my father had a bit of a turn, because he rushed to the umbrella­ closet with the tube and the beans, and when he re­turned pretended to be hard at work on his drawing. However, the policeman had come across the street in order to obtain a good view of all the windows in the house opposite. He stopped directly in front of our window, not fifteen feet from my father and me, and waited several minutes. Little did that policeman suspect that directly behind him were a man, a boy, a bean­ blower, and a supply of beans.

We broke up that morning’s sparking and we broke up several other sessions. Finally the policeman had to give up and do his sparking at other times. He never found out where the beans came from.

§6

A certain incident in our life on Third Street is very vivid in my memory, probably because of the fuss my mother made over it. It was something which she had to piece together, bit by bit, before she had the whole story.

We had among our friends a married couple of about my parents’ age. Their name was Righter. The Righters were very “high church.” My father, as might be imagined, was not ”high church.” He used to go to church occasionally with my mother to hear Henry Ward Beecher preach; but my mother said that she had to give up taking him because, unless the sermon was unusually interesting, he would yawn so much, sigh so loud, squirm in his seat so continuously, and stare so hard at the people in the near-by pews, that it made her fidgety. She finally had to give up trying to soak a little religion into him.

The Righters had me in frequently, not having any children of their own, and probably finding a little boy interesting. Mrs. Righter conceived it her duty to assist in my religious education, and so she used to teach me verses from the Bible. My mother kept this condition of affairs from my father, because she well knew that it would be most unsafe to let him in on any religious matters. But one day, like a child, I inadvertently let the cat out of the bag. In one of the fascinating philosophical discussions with which I was sometimes favored by my father, something was said about what should and what should not be done on a Sunday. I must have been between four and five years old at the time. Probably I asked why it was that things which might be done all right on Saturday afternoon were not proper on Sunday morning. Anything of this sort was irresistible to my father. He led me on until the word “Sabbath” crept into the discussion. I realized for the first time that it meant the same thing as Sunday.

That reminded me of my latest accomplishment, the result of Mrs. Righter’s efforts; so I said to my father that we always should remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.

I shall never forget the look of amazement which swept over his face. Coming straight out of the blue from a little child of four, it must have been startling. When he had caught his breath the conversation continued something like this, according to family legend:

“Who told you that?”

”Mrs. Righter told me that’s what everybody should do.”

“Are you sure you have it the way Mrs. Righter told you to say it?”

“Yes. That’s the way she says it.”

“Just say it again, so I can try to find what is wrong about it, because I am sure you have it wrong.”

“Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.”

“Well! I am surprised.”

“What’s the matter with it?”

“She told you wrong. Nobody who knows says it that way. I am surprised that Mrs. Righter should have told you the wrong way.”

“Well—what is the right way?”

“The way I always say it is, ‘Remember the Sabbath and go fishing.’ ”

“Go fishing?”

“Yes. You see, Percy, the fish always bite better on the Sabbath and people do not have to go to their business on that day, so, as you know, when you and I have gone fishing we always have gone on Sunday. We never went on any other day, did we?”

He was absolutely right. He always was right. He had taken me fishing down near Coney Island in a river and we had caught a lot of crabs, and it was on a Sun­day. It had to be on a Sunday because, as he said, he had to go to his business every other day.

“Remember the Sabbath and go fishing,” I repeated, wondering at the wide difference between what Mrs. Righter had told me and my father’s version.

“That’s right. Now you have it. That’s the way everybody says it. You ought to tell Mrs. Righter the right way to say it, because she probably does not know about it.”

I resolved to do it quickly, which was precisely what my incorrigible father planned.

It is a very curious thing what one remembers. I can distinctly remember climbing up the stairs in the Righters’ house soon after this discussion. I remember that the stairs were carpeted and that the steps were very high for my short legs. I called to Mrs. Righter from downstairs and she called back to me to come along up. I must have begun my announcement to her when only part way up, for there is a clear picture in my mind of holding on to the banisters to help mount the high steps as I began telling her my father had said she had told me wrong about what to say.

”Told you wrong, Percy?”

“Yes, Mrs. Righter. My Papa says you told me wrong. The right way to say it is ‘Remember the Sabbath and go fishing.'”

Something went wrong at this point. I did not know what it was, but I could see that Mrs. Righter was very serious. She said something in a very solemn voice which I took to mean that she was cross with me. This led me to cut my visit short. I went home. I was depressed. Mrs. Righter had never spoken to me that way before. There was only one person to whom I wanted to go­—my mother.

She saw, quickly enough, that something was wrong, as mothers have a way of doing. She asked me why I had returned from Mrs. Righter’s so quickly. I did not want to discuss the question. It was too painful. But by degrees she aroused in me an argumentative mood, not a difficult thing to do with a Maxim. I assumed the offensive myself. I asked her what day it was that Papa and I went fishing. This appeared to surprise her more than ever. She replied that she could not remember, and what in the world had that to do with Mrs. Righter’s being cross with me? I asked her if it was Sunday. She recalIed that it must have been on a Sunday, because Papa always went to his business in New York on the other days. This clinched the matter with me. My father was right. We had gone fishing on Sunday. There was no other day when we could have gone. “Remember the Sabbath and go fishing” must be right. Mrs. Righter was wrong.

Convinced that I had the best of the argument, I told my mother that Mrs. Righter had told me wrong and that Papa had told me the right way to say it.

“Say it!” exclaimed my mother. “Say what?”

“Remember the Sabbath and go fishing,” I replied. The dear lady was aghast. Drawing me to her, she became very serious.

”What was it you said to Mrs. Righter, Percy? Tell Mamma exactly what you said.”

“I told her that she told me the wrong way to say it. My Papa knew and he said the right way to say it was ‘Remember the Sabbath and go fishing,’ and,” I added by way of convincing her, “that’s right, because Papa and I do go fishing on Sunday, don’t we Mamma?”

My poor mother! She saw the entire picture. It was considered, in those days, wicked to go fishing on Sunday. The fishing we had done was done secretly, so far as our neighbors were concerned. Here was a pretty how-d’-do. I recall nothing more about the incident. I have a vague memory of a tearful scene with my father over the Righter affair and some kind of coolness concerning the Righters. My mother patched up matters, but I am sure my father became persona non grata with the Righters, and I know that I did not enjoy going there as much as I had.

————————————————————————————–

From PART III (pages 158-183)
§4

About this time I sat in on my first business conference. It was the practice of my father and mother to have a Mr. Spencer D. Schuyler and Mrs. Schuyler to dinner in Brooklyn on Sunday once in a while. Mr. Schuyler was either the president or some high officer in the United States Electric Lighting Company. My father was chief engineer, or something like it. Hartley and Graham, an old New York firm, which the old generation will remember, had some connection with the company, probably a financial one. Hartley and Graham were also owners of the Union Metallic Cartridge Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut. It appears that an arrangement of some kind was made, under the terms of which Hartley and Graham furnished factory space and capital for the development work which Messrs. Schuyler and Maxim had in mind in connection with their electric-light project.

At one of the dinners for the Schuylers at our house on Union Street, the two men remained at table after the ladies retired to the reception-room. I had become interested in their conversation, and, being a man, albeit a small one, I remained with the other men, listening to every word they uttered and watching the way Mr. Schuyler smoked his cigar. My father never smoked, so smoking was something of a novelty to me. Mr. Schuyler was a business executive and knew very little about electrical matters. My father seemed to be on the defensive most of the time with him, explaining that there were technical limitations beyond which it was impossible to go, even if the promised reward were great; but Mr. Schuyler chafed at these limitations, pointing out the opportunities that were offered if certain things could be done. After a lengthy conference, Mr. Schuy­ler became prophetic. Said he, “Maxim, you may say what you like, but I can see the day coming when electricity will be generated in large electricity works and be distributed through the streets for house lighting just as gas is generated in large gasworks today and distributed through the streets for house lighting.”

To this my father shook his head and replied, ”No, Schuyler. You are looking too far ahead. Such a day may come; but there are too many unsolved technical problems for me to believe it will be in our times.”

I fancy this particular conversation must have occurred in 1878 or 1879. The electric arc lamp had just about emerged from the experimental stage. It gave the most wonderful artificial light the world had ever seen. It was such an advance over the only other artificial light available, the gas jet, that a great business opportunity was foreseen by those interested. But the arc lamp was too hot and too bright and too large for many purposes, so that a race began between Edison and Maxim to see which would be first with an incandescent electric lamp. This incandescent development work seems to have been undertaken on a large scale after Schuyler and Maxim had succeeded in interesting Hartley and Graham. I have one of my father’s old diaries. It is for the year 1880 and it is in as good condition as when he carried it around in his pocket. It had what he used to call a Russia-leather binding, which had a characteristic odor. I remember when I used to climb up on him I could smell this Russia leather. The diary has a trace of this odor today. It is a beautiful piece of work, this old notebook, has his name and ad­dress embossed in gold on it, and must have cost him a pretty penny.

Under the date of January r, 1880, in my father’s handwriting, appears this entry:

At home in Brooklyn all day. Write to Schuyler relating to the Edison light question.

The next day, January 2, 1880, he wrote:

Call on Hartley. See Schuyler. This day we commence in dead earnest the experiments so long delayed on the electric light in a vacuum space. Apparatus for experiment ordered. Go to Pearl River and get from old man B—— a lamp made one year ago. Satisfaction.

This reference, “light in a vacuum space,” makes it appear the incandescent electric lamp was not yet an actuality. The reference to a lamp being made at Pearl River a year previously indicates to me that he built one experimental lamp there, and I imagine that the early arc lamp development work was done there. I remember being taken to Pearl River, New Jersey, when a child. There was a factory there and I remember a lecture given in this factory by my father in which he demonstrated several electrical phenomena, and also a very powerful electric arc searchlight.

An entry under the date of January 3, 1880, reads:

In New York, purchasing apparatus for electric light. Hunting up a glass blower. Go to Bridgeport in the evening.

An entry on January 6, 1880, reads:

Make drawings of current regulator. Prepare case for patent office. Application 1878.

This suggests that he had something in the way of an application in the Patent Office in 1878.

On January 9, 1880, he wrote:

Room finished complete. But no glass blower comes.

This glass-blower and the glass vacuum pump he was to make gave him plenty of trouble, evidently, for all through the diary are entries indicating his desperation over the glass-blowers and the pump. For example, on January 10, 1880, there appears this entry:

Ready for glass blower but he cometh not. Whooping cough worse.

I remember very vividly this whooping-cough trouble. He would have a spasm at home in the evening and cough and whoop and turn purple in the face, driving my mother to the verge of distraction. His habit, when he felt the cough coming, was to hurry to a doorway, put out both arms and brace himself between the side of the doorway and then cough and cough! I used to fear he might explode. After a spasm had passed he would be very cross and watery-eyed.

Succeeding entries suggest the progress he was mak­ing.

On January 14, 1880:

Glass blower comes. Contract for pump. Sterling on rheostat. Determine to make a wheel commutator with a surface a la friction gearing. Sterling approves of it. Work in evening on regulator.

On January 29:

Oh the pump. Boss nuisance. Glass blower fooling with pump.

On the next day the entry reads simply:

Oh the pump!

On February 2:

No glass blowers. Start up my regulator. All right. A big thing.

On February 5:

My 40th birthday. Work on lamps all day. Lecture in evening on Electricity at Opera House.

On February 7:

Pump finished and one lamp finished. Machine, lamp and regulator all working first time in the world. Gasoline an apparent success.

On March 10:

Mr. S. D. Schuyler visits shop and sees incandescent lamps. Says to me, “Maxim, light a house in New York with those lamps and I’ll sell your stock for 200 cents on the dollar.”

In the early days of the development work on the incandescent electric lamp, Mr. Schuyler and my father had offices in the old Equitable Building at 120 Broad way in New York. These offices were taken over by the United States Electric Lighting Company when the latter company was ready to sell electric-lighting equipment. These old offices were destined to remain electric-light offices for many years, for when the electric-light industry became established and the modern Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company became the final owners of the United States Company, they maintained the old office at 120 Broadway. I am informed that my father’s picture hung on the wall there until the old building burned in recent times.

As a little boy I can remember the troublesome glass­ blowers at work in the old Equitable Building. One of them, by the name of Pflock, made a marvelous glass pipe for me one day, as my father and I watched him. Demonstrations of the wonderful new electric light were given frequently. One of these demonstrations was to immerse an incandescent lamp in a glass jar full of water and watch it “burn” under water. This would not attract passing notice today; but in those days it was considered marvelous, because a gas light would not burn under water. People came from far and near to see the unbelievable sight. Later on the company established a factory in the vicinity of Twenty-fifth Street and Avenue B in New York. In this factory the company made a real start in the electric-light business. I used to visit it frequently and came to know many of the leading men. There are a few of them left who never fail to tell me they remember me from the days when I was a little boy and my father used to bring me to the factory.

Both Mr. Schuyler and my father lived to see the day when Mr. Schuyler’s prophecies came true a thou­sand times over.

§5

At about the time of which I am writing my father bought a twenty-one-foot steam-launch. She was a thing of beauty, with all her polished and nickel-plated work. He named her the Flirt. I quickly learned about steam-engines and steam-boilers, and what must be done and what must not be done with them. We used to cruise around New York Bay.

My mother despised the Flirt, as she did all craft excepting ferry-boats. She went with us only infre­quently. Invariably she was badly frightened and sea­ sick. One day she became so frightened and so ill that my father had to put her ashore at Staten Island so that she could go home on the ferry-boat.

On one occasion, my father had me go aboard the Flirt immediately after school, build a fire under the boiler, get up steam, and have everything all shipshape for him at five o’clock, when he was to arrive with an­ other gentleman. At five o’clock I had steam up and everything in order. When he and his friend arrived, I noticed that the latter had to be led down the float to our boat. Clearly he was blind. Arrived alongside, my father guiding him, he put one foot out and felt the boat. After forming an idea as to her size, he came aboard, my father assisting him. He sat down, felt of the seats, got the general layout of the cockpit, and finally moved down toward the stern. Then he asked to be told about the engine and boiler. Before starting to explain them my father beckoned me over. Putting my hand in that of the blind gentleman’s he said, “Mr. Herreshoff, this is my son Hiram Percy Maxim.”

Then turning to me he said, ”Percy, this is Mr. Herreshoff, who knows more about boats than any other man in the world.”

Mr. Herreshoff took my hand and held it in his and smiled a very lovely smile. He felt of my head, evidently estimating my height. He said he always liked to meet little boys and asked me how old I was. I told him, and he drew me to a seat close beside him, put his arm around me and asked my father to continue. While my father explained the power plant, this kindly gentle­man kept his arm around me. I recall that he kept saying, as my father explained detail after detail, “I see. I see.” I thought this a curious remark in view of the fact that he was stone blind. This gentleman was Mr. John B. Herreshoff, one of the founders of the famous boat-building company which is still in business at Bris­tol, Rhode Island. Mr. Herreshoff long since passed on.

After I had become familiar with the steam-plant on the Flirt I wanted to know about other steam-plants. The first to receive my attention was the railroad loco­motive. I must have driven my father desperate with my questions about steam-locomotives.

This obsession of mine reached such a stage that he appealed to my mother. “Good Lord!” said he. “Is there no way we can satisfy this boy’s thirst for in­formation about steam-locomotives?”

“I think if he were allowed to see a real one it might satisfy him,” said she.

So it was arranged that I should be taken to one of the terminal stations of the new Sixth Avenue Elevated Railroad in New York, where James, who had been our man at Fanwood, was engineer of one of the locomotives.

In those days there were only three methods of propelling railroad cars—by horses, by endless cable, and by steam. The elevated lines in New York were operated by little steam locomotives. And thus it came I was taken uptown somewhere in New York and shown one of these little locomotives. I was but moderately im­pressed. These locomotives were small, they had no tender at all, everything about them was all bunched together, and they did not even have a bell. They were so malformed, it seemed to me, that unless one were told one would hardly suspect they were locomotives at all.

James helped me into the cab of the one of which he was the engineer, and then he ran it out of the shed for a few yards and backed it in again. He explained how it was operated, and the differences between the way matters were arranged on a locomotive and on a boat. I saw the principles were the same, but the appli­cation of these principles was startlingly different.

When I returned home my father asked me if I were satisfied now that I had had a good look at a loco­motive. To his consternation I was worse than ever. Having seen the inside of an imitation locomotive, I could not rest until I saw the inside of a real one. I probably made everybody’s life utterly miserable, for when the locomotive complex fastened itself upon me I talked locomotive all the time and made every effort to have the other members of the family do the same.

My mother and father and I were invited to spend a Sunday at Paterson, New Jersey, visiting friends, and they decided that this trip would offer an opportunity for me to see a real locomotive. They accordingly made arrangements to have me ride out to Paterson in the cab of the locomotive of our train.

When we walked out on the platform of the railroad station at Hoboken, I with my hand in my father’s, while my mother went into one of the passenger-cars, I began to have misgivings. The enterprise was assuming more serious proportions than I had contemplated. Arrived at the great, black, hissing monster, my courage began to ooze away. But a hard experience with my father in the past had taught me there must be no backing out. I positively must go through with the business even though it killed me. And so, after a word with the engineer, who was leaning out of his cab window and looking very grimy and dirty, my father lifted me up and the engineer helped me into the seat in front of him. I was completely overcome by the hissing noise. The engineer yelled something in my ear which I could not understand because of the hissing, but I recognized it as being intended as a kindly overture of some sort. His voice was the harshest and most rasping I had ever heard in all my life. I supposed that it had to be this way in order to penetrate the awful noise in which he lived. I was not very communicative by force of circumstances, even had I wished to be, which I did not, for I was too stunned by the awfulness of everything. Steam seemed to be hissing savagely to get out and threatening destruction to all concerned if it were much longer denied; everything seemed to be sizzling hot; something very close at hand was throbbing passionately; there was coal spilled over the floor, which was of steel; the fireman on the opposite side of the cab had a very dirty face and seemed not of this earth; and the engineer seemed to be deeply concerned about some­ thing back of us, for he kept peering out behind.

The heat was frightful and the smell of hot oil was sickening. While I was wondering why I ever came to such an inferno the engineer gave a violent jerk, convincing me that an emergency of some kind had suddenly arisen. He yelled something to the fireman, and then reached up and pulled with all his might on a long lever. The fireman snatched at a rope which he began to pull at regular intervals and which led me to suspect that he was ringing the bell. A fearful and terrible straining sound developed and I realized we were beginning to move. Then something underneath broke, or appeared to. The entire engine gave a fearful wrench and began coughing and snorting like an enraged monster; great clouds of steam and smoke belched from the smokestack, while the engine made a valiant effort to shake itself to pieces, trembling and vibrating in a manner calculated to raise every hair on my head. Something underneath was grinding as I never imagined anything in this world could grind. I glanced quickly at the engineer to see what he thought of the situation. Catching my eye, he smiled a reassuring smile and made a whirling action with his hand, pointing down, which I recognized meant that the driving wheels were slipping on the rails. My immediate fears were allayed, but I was a long way from being at ease in my mind.

We ran along over a maze of switches and cross tracks which caused me to marvel at the confidence of the engineer that his beast of an engine would take these switches and not run off the track. He did not seem to concern himself enough to watch out ahead and see where he was going. In a few minutes, and with no warning of any kind, we plunged headlong into a tunnel. We came upon it so suddenly, what with all the curves and switches, it made me flinch. I expected we were going to run headlong into the masonry which framed the tunnel entrance.

The moment we entered the tunnel a new complication arose. This one defied any explanation I could bring to bear. I was face to face with the most baffling mystery I had encountered in all my short life. It was so baffling as to cause me to forget the deafening noise, the frightful jolting, the heat, smell, fire, smoke, and hissing steam. It was dark in the tunnel. Right straight ahead of us there seemed to be something like a bird­ house on the top of a high shiny pole. My first impulse was to dodge, as it seemed unavoidable that we should hit it. Strange to say, however, we could not seem to reach it; and yet there it stood directly in front of us. I could see that the bottom of the shiny pole was very close to the front of the engine. I cudgeled my brains, struggling to account for it. For the first time in my life my eyes were deceiving me.

I suppose I stared at that bird-house on the top of the shiny pole for two minutes before it resolved itself into the outlet portal of the tunnel and the glistening steel rails leading to it. I was so impressed and upset by this optical illusion that I could not adjust myself to what was real.

Every once in a while the fireman seemed to encounter some new and terrible emergency. With no warning, he would leap from his seat, grab something and pull desperately at it, and there usually would follow some kind of an ear-splitting clang. The fire door would burst open, an inferno of flame would be disclosed within the firebox; the fireman would peer into this inferno and seem to consider diving into it in order to fix some­thing. But he would always think of another expedient, whereupon he would dash for the tender and engage in mortal combat with some kind of a long article which I could not see. Then he would attack the fire savagely with another long tool which he would withdraw smoking hot. He would slam this long hot tool down on the steel floor and dash out into the tender again, be gone for some seconds, and then dash back and proceed to shovel coal into the fire feverishly. He did this shoveling in such desperation that I was convinced he was doing his utmost to save all our lives. The shoveling done, he would slam the fire door shut, pitch the shovel into the tender, and scramble for his seat as though the devil himself were after him, and then gaze idly out his window and wave to somebody, appearing utterly to forget the emergency he had been fighting. To a little boy this exhibition was bewildering.

The engineer was less excitable. However, he made me very nervous, for he could not seem to resist the temptation to keep adjusting handles. A new and more alarming noise developed every time he touched one. The engine itself seemed to me to be bent upon its own destruction. It appeared to be rapidly coming to pieces, crashing and pounding and reeling drunkenly in its headlong plunge down the track. I could not but feel that if we arrived safely in Paterson it would be a marvelous achievement; and under no circumstances could I imagine anyone having the courage to start out again with this clattering, drunken, wheezing machine, once it got us safely to our destination.

In due course we staggered into the station at Paterson and the engineer was successful in stopping the dreadful monster at the right place without killing any­body. My father came up in a few moments, thanked the engineer, and lifted me down.

“Well, Percy, how did you like it?” he inquired as we walked back to join my mother. My ears were ringing with the noise and I was half stunned, but I answered, “Not very much.”

After this I pursued the subject of locomotives with my father whenever a favorable opportunity offered, but not with that burning passion which had previously possessed me.

§ 6

One day I saw in Crandall’s toy-store on Fulton Street a small stationary steam-engine. It was a little bit of a thing, having a copper boiler which would hold not more than a quarter of a teacup of water. It had a diminutive alcohol lamp under the boiler and a single oscillating engine on top of the boiler. It was a very primitive sort of a steam-engine, but it was real and it would run by steam. When my father came home that evening I told him of what I had seen.

“Gosh, Papa, you ought to see it! It has a little fly­ wheel and all!” I told him.

My enthusiasm was so overpowering that he put down his paper and looked at me, with that quizzical expression in his face which made him look as though he were trying not to laugh.

“Oh, I’ve seen those engines. They stand up, don’t they? It’s an upright design. And the engine has a lead flywheel on one end of its shaft and a grooved pulley on the other end. Is that right?”

”Yes, that’s right. Gee, Papa, but couldn’t we have fun if we had one!”

“Do you know what the grooved pulley is for?” he asked.

I did, for I had seen a larger engine of this type driving a lot of things which looked like machines in a little toy factory.

“Yes. I know what that’s for. You put a string on it and run the string to another wheel and it makes the other wheel go. They have a little toy factory down at Crandall’s and all the machines are made to go by strings and wheels from one engine. Gosh, Papa! You ought to go down to Crandall’s and see all the things they have.”

“Is it open at night, do you suppose?” asked my father, still with that quizzical look.

“I don’t know whether they are open at night. Wait till I ask Mamma,” and I was off like a wild thing for my mother upstairs.

“Mamma, do you suppose Crandall’s is open at night?”

“Crandall’s?”

“Yes. You know. Crandall’s toy-store, downtown.”

“Oh! No, I don’t think so, except on Saturday nights.”

Hurrying back downstairs, I told him Mamma thought they were open at night only on Saturdays. He had returned to his paper during my absence, and all I could get out of him was that he would go down some Saturday evening and look at the engines.

When Saturday evening came I was on his trail and he happened to be in the mood, so he and I set out for Crandall’s. I was so excited I could not walk; I had to skip and jump. Arrived at Crandall’s, I pointed out the engine in the show window and he took a good look at it.

“Let’s go inside and see what it’s like,” he finally remarked. Things were coming along beautifully. I never had induced him to go into a store that he did not buy me something before he got out.

A young woman waited upon us and my father told her we had come in to look over their steam-engines. She knew her business, for she brought out samples of every steam-engine they had in the store.

My father, the chief engineer of the United States Electric Lighting Company, pleaded ignorance of machinery, and he quickly had the young lady so completely tangled up with his questions that I had to step in and prompt her. She was not at all well informed about steam-machinery. When I explained a detail to her I recall that she and my father exchanged glances and smiles. It was not very long before I found myself explaining the engines to both of them, pointing out how they were made ready for a start and how they were operated after steam was up. My father appeared to be intensely interested but particularly stupid.

“Do you have to bother with putting water in it to make it go?” he would ask. I was too excited to realize that I was being led on.

“You have to have water to boil if you are going to get any steam, Papa. You have to have water in the Flirt‘s boiler, don’t you?”

“The Flirt is our steam-launch,” my father felt called upon to explain to the saleswoman. Then to me: “Oh yes. But the Flirt is a steamboat.”

I thought this about as weak an argument as could be devised. I was surprised that his knowledge should be so superficial.

“SteamBOAT!” I exploded. ”What’s that got to do with it, Papa? It’s the steam-engine in the boat that makes the boat go. The steam is for the engine—not the boat,” and I shot him a sharp look of impatience.

“Oh!” he answered uncomprehendingly.

“Did you think the steam pushed against the boat and made it go?” I asked, becoming exasperated and eyeing him intently.

“Well—I— Something pushes against the boat, Percy, or it wouldn’t go.”

“Gosh, Papa! I thought you knew more than that. Look here. To get steam you have to boil water, don’t you?”

”Yes.”

“When you boil water and get steam you let the steam go into a steam-engine, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

”When you let steam into a steam-engine it makes the engine go, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“When the steam-engine goes it makes the propeller go, doesn’t it?”

“Yes—but— ”

“But what?”

“It seems— I should think— Never mind. Go ahead.”

“Well, when the propeller goes, it pushes against the water and this makes the boat go ahead. Everybody knows that, Papa.”

By this time I suppose my eyes were flashing and my voice had become very loud and penetrating, for I re­member that we were the center of all eyes in the store.

“That’s all right if you have a boat; but this is not a boat,” my father insisted, picking up the smallest of the engines, idly twisting the little flywheel and looking very silly.

”Of course it’s not a boat. It’s an engine, Papa. But it will go if you put water in the boiler and light the lamp. Anyway, I can make it go.”

”Are you sure you can make it go, Percy?”

”Yes, Papa, I’m sure.”

“Who told you how to make it go?”

“Mr. Haynes bought me a little steamboat when I went to his house in Boston that time I went to Wayne alone, and it had a little engine in it something like this one. And anyway, I know about these engines.”

At this point he nodded to the saleswoman and she wrapped the engine up and handed it to me. When we had it at home I found, to my surprise, that my father knew more about the engine than I did. He explained the penalty when too much water is put into the boiler, or too little water, and for failure to blow out the lamp before the last bit of water is boiled away.

I played with this engine for a long time, learning its tricks, its good points and its bad points and every minute detail of its construction. I must have impressed my parents with my genuine love and appreciation of it, because the day came when my father bought me a little steam-locomotive, train of cars, and track. I was over­come! My father explained to me how the engine was constructed and how it had to be operated, emphasizing that it was a very expensive toy, was a real steam railroad in miniature, and that failure to handle it care­fully and intelligently would quickly ruin it beyond repair.

That evening he and I set up the track, got up steam, and ran the outfit. It was wonderful! I suppose this was the high point in my life up to this time. I actually owned my own steam-locomotive and railroad! I am glad to be able to say I was as good as my word, for I played regularly with this little steam-train for many years, and never injured the boiler or any of the delicate ma­chinery.

Some twenty-nine years after my father gave me this steam-train I gave my son one almost exactly like it. He got the same exquisite pleasure from his that I did from mine, and he did even better than I did, for while he played regularly with his train for many years, it is still in good running order today, though it must be over twenty years old. My hope is that I may see the day come when the second generation will be handed this identical toy to play with.

§7

I recall what was to me a series of very impressive evenings on my next visit to Wayne. (This time my father accompanied me.) It seems to have been a custom of my grandfather’s for Samuel to read aloud to the family. When evening came and it was time to start the reading aloud, my grandmother would take her seat in a low rocking-chair and start knitting or sewing. Beside her was a small table on which stood a kerosene­ lamp. My grandfather would sit in his large rocking­ chair in the center of the room, his hands folded in his lap and his large dark eyes staring into space. He rarely spoke.

Before a high desk on a high stool would sit my uncle Sam, the reader. Another small kerosene-lamp furnished him light. The remainder of the room would be dark and mysterious to me, for I was accustomed to plenty of gaslight when evening came. On the floor near the reader, his back resting against the wall, would sit my uncle Hudson, known in the family as “Ike.” Astride a chair and also close to the reader would sit my father. I sat in a small chair. I was careful to place this chair close to my grandmother’s side. She was a woman and the nearest thing to a mother that was avail­able to me. It seemed to me the better part of wisdom to be as near to her as possible.

On this visit the book being read was Mark Twain’s Roughing It. Uncle Sam had a wonderful voice. It was deep and resonant and dramatic. His wavy, jet-black hair, his flashing dark eyes, and his remarkably hand­some face suggested Wilkes Booth, the actor, my mother used to say. Hudson and my father were of the same type, both having wavy black hair and very dark eyes. When a passage was read which impressed these young men as humorous they would throw back their heads and laugh so loudly and savagely that it fright­ened me. The deep-throated voices, the reckless abandon, and the noise of their feet scuffling on the bare floor, seemed terribly sinister to me. When the end of the humorous passage was reached, Uncle Sam would add his roars to that of the others.

During these scenes my grandmother would never look up from her work, except to look at me to see if I were awake or asleep, I suppose. My grandfather, likewise, would sit in silence, bolt upright in his chair, his hands folded in his lap, and never change the ex­pression on his face. I have heard much reading in the days which have come since those early ones down in Maine; but never have I heard anything so dramatic, virile, and commanding.

My father and I returned to Brooklyn after a ten days’ visit. Little did I realize, when I said good-by and drove away, that more than forty years were to pass before I should drive back over that road and that I was never again to see my grandfather and my grand­mother. They died a few years after this. When next I drove down that road to the old house I had with me a wife, a fourteen-year-old son, and an eight-year-old daughter. I tried to convey to my children an idea of the place as it had been when I was last there with my father; but it was impossible. The old atmosphere had gone. All that was left was the old house and my uncle Sam, now an aged man with failing eyesight. It was the end of that particular generation of the house of Maxim.

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From Part V (final pages, 191-193)

§3

In later years my father became a British subject. In consideration of the service his Maxim gun had been to British arms in the Sudan he was knighted by Queen Victoria and became Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim. In the course of events his machine-gun business was absorbed by Vickers Sons & Company and the firm became Vickers Sons and Maxim. It was one of the largest firms in England, building battleships and all that went into them. My father became internationally known and occupied a position of great importance and dignity.

At one time during the height of his glory it was ob­served by some of his associates that he went out every evening about seven-thirty and did not return until about nine-thirty. His associates had come to know him and his characteristics, and it was agreed that this mysterious absence every evening had better be investigated, lest Sir Hiram be led into doing something foolish and get himself into difficulties. And so he was trailed one evening and seen to enter a building in the business district of London. About nine o’clock he came out and returned home.

Investigation disclosed that he had hired a front room in the top of the building. When the room was searched the only things found were a chair, a long brass tube, and a bag of black beans. Had I been one of the investigators I would have solved the mystery the moment I saw the brass tube and the beans. It so happened that the Salvation Army paraded every evening in this part of London and held a meeting on the opposite side of the street. For some time complaints had been made to the police that some one was disturbing the Salvation Army group by dropping beans upon them. The beans always came from directly overhead and it was thought that some miscreant in the building in front of which the meetings were held was guilty of tossing out the beans. However, careful watch had failed to disclose anyone throwing beans, and a search of the building produced no evidence. Where the beans came from was an unsolved mystery.

Those who were trailing Sir Hiram kept a watch on the window of his room, and it was thought that he was seen at the window at times; but nothing was thought of this until some one picked up one of the beans which had been thrown at the Salvation Army and found it was the same kind of bean that Sir Hiram had in the bag in his room. That was enough. Sir Hiram was the bean-thrower. He was making use of the same trick he used when he was a young man and lived on Third Street in Brooklyn; he had been blowing the beans at the upper part of the building opposite, so that they bounced off and fell vertically, thus giving the impression that they were coming from directly overhead.

A session was held with Sir Hiram and it was explained that he had better give up this bean-blowing practice before he was discovered. He gave it up; but I know he had enjoyed himself mystifying the Salvation Army people and having all the blame laid at the door of the occupants across the street. The use of black beans should be noted. It was impossible to trace their flight in the dark.

And thus I come to the end of this intimate picture of that remarkable person, Hiram Stevens Maxim. I think it must be conceded that he was an unusual father, and that being his firstborn was an unusual experience. In this picture I have confined myself to his intimate family life. I have attempted to show that he had an extremely attractive side and also an extremely difficult one. He had a brilliancy which sparkled, a masterful cleverness and resourcefulness that placed him above any other man I ever knew. But he never quite learned how to be a father.

 

Copyright, 1936, by Harper & Brothers
Permission to reproduced being sought.

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